Category Archives: Villains & Monsters

The TIFF Bell Lightbox, Toronto’s foremost review cinema house, is putting on an extensive stop-motion animation retrospective for the public over the next few months. Titled ‘Magic Motion: The Art of Stop-Motion Animation,’ the first screenings are set to take place this weekend. Two of the initial weekend screenings, King Kong (1933) and The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), are particularly noteworthy features in the development of cinema. Both films laid an early blueprint for the future of action-adventure motion pictures. Read the rest of this entry →

Literally one decade ago, shortly after the collapse of the World Trade Centre towers in Manhattan and amidst the backdrop of the mailing of anthrax-laced letters throughout the United States, my good friend Andy B (Biff Bam Pop’s resident Editor-In-Chief) and I decided to take a cheap flight to England and backpack that fair country, visiting the many historic haunts the country had to offer.

With the Halloween season upon us, I’ve been asked to remind our loyal followers of some of the great movie themes from horror films. So without further ado, here are some themes to put you in the Halloween spirit:

When it came to my faovurite monster of villain, my first thought was Dracula. I grew up watching the old Universal Bela Lugosi flicks, moving on to the Hammer films with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee later on. I’ve had a thing for vampires as long as I can remember. But upon deeper thought, it occurred to me that my favourite monsters aren’t the ones that I go back to regularly. Instead, they’re the ones that I tend to not see so often, except for special occassions. Sort of like family.

The requisite dress attire of a villain: the black cape, the walking cane, the high-top hat, the mask, the monocle and the twirling moustache. All darkish elements, amended, abridged and transformed for differing eras, no? The scoundrel from the old silent movie era traded in curling, long, waxy hair above his upper lip for the shaggy and wild back hair of the werewolf creature. The cylinder hat of the early twentieth century rogue was reimagined as Darth Vader’s mask in a galaxy far, far away.